Manny Ramirez was no stranger to the trade rumor circuit during his time in Boston, long before the team actually went ahead and shipped him to the Dodgers in 2008. The deal that would have sent him to the Rangers in exchange for Alex Rodriguez is perhaps the most well known Manny non-trade, but WEEI.com's Rob Bradford says the team also came very close to shipping Ramirez to the Mets following the 2004 season.
Manny was fresh off being named World Series MVP, but the idea behind trading him was to use the savings for then free agents J.D. Drew and Adrian Beltre. Drew went on the sign with the Dodgers, Beltre the Mariners, though both found their way to Boston eventually.
There were several variations of the deal with the Mets, but the two constants were hotshot prospect Lastings Milledge and the veteran Cliff Floyd. At various other times, the package of players included Heath Bell and Ian Bladergroen, who the Mets eventually traded the the Red Sox for Doug Mientkiewicz.
The deal fell apart because of money. The Mets wanted to the Red Sox to kick in some of the $77MM left on Manny's deal, but Boston "wanted to get money back in the deal to pursue the available free agents." Bradford goes through some what-could-have-been scenarios in his article.
Ramirez went on to hit another 120 home runs and win another World Championship with the Red Sox, while the Mets fell just a game short of qualifying for the 2006 Fall Classic. They did, however, land one superstar responsible for helping the Red Sox end their World Series drought that offseason, signing Pedro Martinez to a four year, $53MM deal in December of 2004.
Manny might be a dog but thank God the Mets dropped the ball on this one. We don’t win in 07 without the Dominican Diva that’s for sure! Their consolation prize, Pedro, was a bust. 2 wins for the Sox here! The Mets did make up for some of this by fleecing the Twins for Johan in 09!
The Red Sox don’t win period without Manny. 04 doesn’t happen, as Ortiz would not have had sufficient protection, and would have simply been an intentional walk in many of the situations that he was allowed to bat in.
The Mets probably would have won the NLCS in 2006 at the least. But then the Mets would have had to put up with Manny wanting to be traded and taking himself out of the lineup because he wouldn’t get his way.
And the Yanks almost traded Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada for David Wells. So what? It didn’t actually happen…
I never heard Jorge in the deal cause i also read the book yankee years by joe torre and they talked about that in the deal it would have been Mo and propects because mo was a starter then. but none the less your right
Manny would have been a nightmare to coach in NY, and without the other strong personalities and bats around him, he’d have stuck out like a sore thumb. Also, he’d have been a bad influence on Reyes and Wright.
Not to mention, After the 2004 season, the Mets weren’t exactly a winning team. Getting Manny would have been interesting, but it wouldn’t have solved problems. Getting Pedro- risks and all- was a better move. So was Beltran. And since 2005, the Mets have had only one losing season- last year- due to a plethora of injuries. Not bad, overall.
I believe in 2005, they came close to getting Manny in a three way trade also including the Rays. They were supposed to send Cameron to the Sox, and the Rays would send Huff to the Sox, and the Rays would get prospects from both teams. What supposedly happened there though was the Rays GM ended up asking for too many prospects, and Theo wasn’t happy about it, and it just deteriorated from there.
Seems like the baseball gods don’t want Manny in NY.
The Red Sox were pretty much “pretending” to trade Manny every year except for the ARod trade…they were just doing their “due diligence” to keep Manny happy, who always asked to be traded ALL the time.
The Red Sox were pretty much “pretending” to trade Manny every year except for the ARod trade…they were just doing their “due diligence” to keep Manny happy, who always asked to be traded ALL the time.